-far from home-

––when I was very young,
the target of required bedtime,

the early years of being
adjudicated as always "in the way,"
I was keenly aware of the glistening
black Buick parked in front of the house,
of how something so heavy could glide
from the curb with such power and grace,
only to disappear eastward into the distance,
the route 6 sunrise as if by instinct.

sometimes the driver's attitude indicated

a general weariness at the end of the day

which indicated to me that maybe I had it coming.

––when I was young,
but old enough to ride my bike across a surface
other than dirt, my father tripped and fell in the kitchen

hitting the hard linoleum, snapping the little finger
of his left hand at the knuckle, forming the shape
of a hard left turn, but rose again slowly, reaching
for the open pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes
laying-in-wait on the table without missing a beat.

this happened long before his first stroke,–– although

upon reflection, lacking a medical diagnosis at the time,
maybe the fall in the kitchen was a result of his actual first stroke,
which would move the medically diagnosed first stroke
to second stroke status and now that it comes to mind,
it might have been during the time
when he was smoking Chesterfield and driving a Pontiac.